The skilful physician

318 Pages·2020·270.87 MB·English

by  Balaban, Carey David, Erlen, Jonathon, Siderits, Richard

The S kilful P hysician

The S kilful Physician
Edited b y
Carey Balaban, PhD

and

Jonathon Brien, PhD

University o f Pittsbu1lJ'b

Pennsylvania

and

Richard Siderits, MD

O
CRC Press
C~
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CONTENTS

Preface . .. . . . . . .. . .. . . . . .. . . . .. . .. . . . . . . . . .. .. .. . . . .. . . . . vii

Introduction ........................................ ·. . . . . . . ix

THE SKILFUL PHYSICIAN ..................•.......... ·..... 1

Glossary .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Table o f Medicinal Ingredients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . 233
Index ............................................. 277

PREFACE

The importance o f natural foods, minerals and h erbs in preventive
medicine and healing is a venerable theme in the h istory of medicine.
Since the fifteenth century, natural healing has been f eatured in a g enre o f
printed s elf-help m edical texts combining principles f or p reventive
medicine and recipes for natural remedies. The Skilful P hysician,
originally published in 1656, is a collection o f guidelines for maintaining
one's h ealth plus r ecipes for d isease r emedies, perfumes a nd t reated w ines.
Similar t o t he contents o f the seminal 1618 Phtlrmacopaia Londinensis,
these recipes use only n atural ingredients: herbs, minerals a nd p arts o f
animals. However, u nlike the Phtlrmacopaia Londinensis, which· was
published b y t he College o f Physicians for a p rofessional a udience, The
Skilful P hysician was targeted a t t he general public.
The b ook begins with the premise t hat preservation o f good health
requires attention to p roper d iet a nd life-style. However, recognizing that
preventive measures are not p erfect. the compiler i ncluded r ecipes for 705
compound m edicines to treat a w ide variety of illnesses. Instructions for
choosing wines, a s w ell as 58 recipes to p reserve, " recover a nd r estore"
wines are included. Fmally, 15 formulas for perfumes a re presented. This
volume is representative o f popular m edical texts from the mid-seventeenth
century, a g enre that includes t he well-known Culpeper's Complete Herbal,
written by Nicholas C ulpeper a nd published i nitially in 1 652. Unlike
Culpeper's c ompendium, which has been reprinted e xtensively, The Skilful
Physician has never b een r eprinted. This new edition makes a f ascinating
work a vailable t o m odem scholars and t he public.
ln a ddition to the original t ext. we have prepared a n introduction d iscussing
The Skilful P hysician within the context o f seventeenth-century English
medical theories and practices by both p rofessional a nd l ay healers, a t able of
natural i ngredients a nd a n index. Since many medical t enns a re unfamiliar t o
the modem reader, we have also compiled a g lossary of key medical
terminology found in the text, with definitions derived f rom contemporaneous
sources. It is hoped t hat t his book will serve as a r esource for u nderstanding
the preparation of s eventeenth-century n atural remedies and e ncourage further
scholarship i n this important p eriod i n the history of medicine and phannacy.
viii PREFACE
The e ditors wish to thank ldelia W olfe and M argaret Moran for their
clerical assistance with this project T he illustrations were reproduced
from a c opy of t he 1633 edition of John Gerard's Tht Herbal or G eneral
History o f Plants i n the collection o f The H unt Institute for Botanical
Documentation. The e ditors thank Charlotte T ancin, librarian and s enior
research scholar, Hunt Institute, for making this material available for our
use. We a ppreciate the helpful comments of Norman Gcvitz, John
Scarborough and Charlotte Tancin on a n earlier version of the manuscript
We are also grateful to R uth Kuenzig for providing the original text. This
work is dedicated to the memory of her father Dr. David Eckstein­
physician a nd h umanitarian.
INTRODUCTION

Medicine a nd health c are in seventeenth-century England d id n ot c onfonn
to a s imple, strict h ierarchical model. Just a s English s ociety was
undergoing a s eries of significant r eligious, political and economic
changes, o rganized medicine during this century also w as facing severe
challenges to its continuing adherence to Galenic medical dogma 1 Besides
the e merging threats to t raditional medical authority posed b y the growth
of Paracelsian chemical b eliefs2 and a new philosophy e ncouraging
medical e xperimentation s upported b y the Royal Society o f London, 3
outside the urban bastion o f London a w ide variety of healers usurped part
or all of the university-trained physicians' prestige and economic rewards.
The S kilful P hysician, published a t the midpoint o f t he century, illustrates
many of the major threads running through the complex pattern o f
seventeenth-century E nglish medicine.
Within seventeenth-century L ondon organized m edicine was divided
among three groups holding royal c harters: physicians (College of
Physicians o f London created in 1518), b arber-surgeons ( Barber-surgeon's
Company c reated i n 1540) and a pothecaries (Society of Apothecaries
created i n 1617).4 The u niversity-trained p hysicians s ought u nsuccessfully
to m onopolize the p ractice o f physic. Attacks from within their o wn ranks
by s upporters o f Paracelsian and Baconian philosophies severely limited
their s tatus in the public mind.' A l arge group o f alternative healers, ranging
from non-licensed physicians to quacks, siphoned off m any of the traditional
doctors' potential paying patients. Most medical care in London was
provided b y d omestic healers within a h ousehold s etting.
The p icture o f medical delivery o utside o f metropolitan London is much
more confusing. Ronald Sawyer, in his noteworthy dissertation, discusses
eight g roups of popular h ealers practicing in rural England d uring this
century: clergy~octors, magical healers, medical assistants a nd
itinerants, bone-setters, itinerants r oaming between villages, midwives,
gentlewomen and d omestic healers. 6 This varied assortment o f popular
healers competed a gainst a nd, at t imes, worked with the very few
university-trained physicians who ventured fonh from urban centers such
as London, Bath and Norwich.7 Selection o f an appropriate healer was